Finance firm to advise Uttar Pradesh on township development project

Kolkata, Sep 20 (IANS) Non-banking finance company SREI Infrastructure Finance Ltd has bagged a contract from the Uttar Pradesh government to advise it on an integrated urban development project, to be developed on public-private-partnership model, a top company official said here Saturday.”We have got the advisory role for the integrated Uttar Pradesh township development project,” SREI chairman and managing director Hemand Kanoria told reporters on the sidelines of the company annual general meting.

The major thrust areas under the purview of the project will be development of power, urban rejuvenation, road infrastructure, health care and education.

SREI’s role in the project will be to conceptualise and manage the bid process and select appropriate developers. It will play the advisory role for six projects in Uttar Pradesh - Agra, Aligarh, Allahabad, Meerut, Ghaziabad and Varanasi.

Sources told IANS that the total size of the contract is around Rs.88.5 billion.

The company occupies 30 percent market share in infrastructure equipment financing in India.

SREI is also the advisor to the state government in the Ganga Expressway project along with Indian Railways consultancy firm RITES. The public-private-partnership (PPP) project would run along the river Ganga, stretching 1,047 km.

This will connect Greater Noida to Ballia, ensuring high-speed connectivity between the eastern and western boundaries of the state.

“The total asset base of the company in the current fiscal will touch Rs.200 billion compared to around Rs.100 billion last fiscal,” Kanoria said.

“We are not looking at any FDI yet. We will remain focused with our present business,” he added.

The company has also entered into a 50:50 joint venture with BNP Paribas Lease Group, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the globally reputed BNP Paribas.

The profit after tax of the company in 2007-08 was Rs.1.08 billion, compared to Rs.840 million in 2006-07.